


It's not love, but I can't lie to you

by Blue_Pen



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Don’t copy to another site, F/M, Fondness, No Dialogue, Short, almost love, just thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2020-06-29 20:15:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19837747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blue_Pen/pseuds/Blue_Pen
Summary: Melion's thoughts about his relationship with Isabelle





	It's not love, but I can't lie to you

Shadowhunters didn't trust Downworlders, and Downworlders didn't trust Shadowhunters. It was a simple rule, as natural for every child of Downworld as breathing (well, even more so for vampires).  
Shadowhunters hide their distrust behind alleged moral superiority and supposedly needed brute force, and Downworlders used every trick they had to even out the odds. 

So Meliorn really couldn't explain what went wrong. He was sure he knows what he's getting into. The young, pretty Shadowhunter wanted to use him to get information and feed her rebellious streak, and he in turn would extract information from her and get his fun.  
He would say that he didn't know when he started to care what she thinks and feels, when he started to reveal little bits of information she didn't know to ask for - but sadly, he was incapable of lying, even to himself - so he knew. 

At first she liked him because he couldn't lie, and he liked her because she was pretty and better at hiding her superiority complex than her Shadowhunter peers. 

He was aware she was beautiful since he meet her, this wasn't something anybody would be able to stay unaware of. Everybody, Shadowhunter, Downworlder, or not, seemed to be under the spell of her charm, her grace, her free and joyful character. But Meliorn lived to long to let pretty face to sway him, being a little bit charmed many times in his existence, but still managing to stay the one who actually did the charming in the end. 

He started to think she was kind, at least to the ones she cared about, and it was a dangerous thought considering the subject. Kind Shadowhunters seemed to be the trap, something any self-respecting Seelie would steer clear of - or used against them, always cleverer and not so easily distracted.  
Yet, here he was, with the tiniest part of himself suspecting he started to be one of the people she cared about, the ones she was truly kind to, and this treacherous part of him hadn't wanted to know if his actions would break her, or break the illusion (and maybe, break him anyway). 

He was in awe of her boldness, her sense of justice, and disregard for the law she found unjust. The Shadowhunter law that made her better than him in the eyes of her peers.  
Her boldness made her also open about the disdain she had for parts of Seelie law (never him, never the people, just the rules), and he knew they will never trust each other, never understand. 

Her open nature paradoxically made her good at concealing. She dazzled people with her talk, and her smile, and she omitted and gathered what she wanted to. She was more like them than Shadowhunters in this part, truthful but not honest, generous but never fully selfless. 

She smiled at him, and he knew she smiled at Meeliorn, her lover, her friend and ally, not on Seelie Knight, or her contact, or Downworlder, or a body to claim.  
She saw him, as much as he let her see (which was maybe more than he ought to), and liked his company just for him.  
It was unnerving, trickery without trickery, something tender between them that would break if they addressed it. 

He told his queen that he's using her, and it was the truth. He was incapable of untruths, even if it would be possible for a mere knight to trick her.  
He told the queen the girl thinks that she's using him too, and it was the truth, even if it didn't feel like the full truth. 

He let her come back to his home, to this realm, he let her wander in his thoughts even if she wasn't around. 

It wasn't love, he said. And he told the truth.  
Yet, it was something too close to it for his comfort, too fond of this mortal Shadowhunter girl, who was getting her information, her fun and rebellion, and didn't really mater in the great scheme of things.  
(And yet, he risked for her and would do it again.  
Funny things, this emotions.)  
He almost laughs at himself.

He's in control, as much as he needs to be.  
He has experience over her, tricks, knowledge and time.  
Yet, he lets her do what she wants, as much as he can.  
He likes her confidence, her light, and doesn't want to restrain her in any way. Doesn't think that anybody should, even if there would be a person who was able to). 

He isn't jealous of her lovers, as she isn't jealous of his, but he feels a twinge of something when the naive boys fall for her, and she welcomes it.  
It is a thing he isn't able to give her. Complete adoration and devotion a part of her obviously craves. 

She cuts him of.  
She gets him arrested.  
She makes him disobey his Queen.  
And yet he lets her come, lets her try to explain, and he is too old and too smart to pretend to himself he isn't in trouble. 

She's angry at her lover-boy vampire, but not at him, not really, and it shouldn't feel so weird that she never trusted him to choose her over his people - even thought it's kind of obvious, as much as that she would betray him for her people if needed.  
It stings that it's so easy to know, and that he wishes it wasn't.  
He's a fool, but so is any man who had the luck to meet her. 

She still wants to be his friend, and he doesn't know if they ever were, but also it isn't like they were not. They always seemed to stay in-between, and maybe he wants it still too. 

He doesn't want what she wants, even if she isn't fully aware yet of what it is.  
He gives her time to figure it out anyway. She deserves the right to choose, if it's the only thing he can give her.

Still, he hopes she'll stay until then.


End file.
